Alderman Scott testifies to Boston City Council on equity in retail cannabis licensing

Julia Taliesin

Wednesday

Dec 5, 2018 at 2:18 PMDec 5, 2018 at 2:18 PM

Boston is hoping to lead the way when it comes to equity in the retail cannabis industry, but Somerville may have beaten them to it.

On Tuesday, Dec. 4, Somerville Ward 2 Alderman J.T. Scott testified to the Boston City Council Committee on Small Business and Consumer Affairs on Somerville’s Recreational Marijuana Ordinance.

The committee met to hold a public hearing on equity in Boston’s retail marijuana licensing. Scott was invited to testify, but dozens of community members also attended to share their testimony on the issue.

“We need to make sure that communities that have been locked up, are not locked out of this economic opportunity,” said Kim Janey, Committee Chair and Councilor from District 7, referring to the impacts of the war on drugs on communities of color. “We have a chance to get the cannabis industry right from the beginning. That is why we need to take action now, before out of state dispensaries open up and take prime locations, and lock out local and economic empowerment applicants.”

Scott was invited to testify on the process behind the innovative language around equity and inclusivity in retail cannabis licensing in Somerville’s recreational marijuana ordinance.

“A lot of the focus here today has been on retail businesses, and that’s understandable, it’s the most public facing, and, in some ways, the most accessible in terms of actually achieving some economic gains for folks living in the communities. But there’s also the whole class of non-retail licenses, the cultivators, the craft co-ops, the product manufacturers ... and when it came to Somerville, we want to be open for business,” he said. “This is to make sure we get more commercial and industrial production in the town.”

Scott spoke in detail about the ordinance Somerville is currently reviewing, specifically the way they have chosen to prioritize certain applicants in order to retain the economic benefits of the new industry in Somerville.

“One of the distributors in town actually has an incubator program where they are helping small businesses, several of which are economic empowerment applicants, to get started,” he said. “Now, those people are in the product development and product manufacturing space, but I can think of no clearer way to signal to these [big cannabis] businesses that they can get into the business, in an equity business, than to say, ‘you get your license when the people who have been closest to the pain start to get theirs.’”

This statement was greeted by applause and cheers of approval from the public.

“That’s why we set up this two year window in which nobody from out of state, nobody from out of town, nobody whose not an economic empowerment applicant can even sniff a license in Somerville,” he said. “But even within that first window, we want to make sure that the first group goes to locally owned, co-op, and economic empowerment applicants, or equivalent.”

Congresswoman-elect Ayanna Pressley, present serving as a co-sponsor of the hearing with District 5 Councilor Tim McCarthy, hopes Boston will pioneer comprehensive equity legislation in the retail cannabis industry.

“Here we have the opportunity to be proactive, deliberate, and inclusive and intentional, and to really set the blueprint and to be the example for the nation as to how to codify into practice and implement equity in this industry. No one has gotten this right,” she said. “For the dispensaries throughout the country, the states that had legalized in advance of us, less than 2 percent of the dispensaries were owned by people of color. We’d seen what the trend was national, and we wanted to get it right here.”